Bringing the crack since December 2003

Awesome New Female Characters: Kate Kane and her crazy sister

And signaling the shift in the Batbooks from the Iron Age to Batman Inc.

It started simply enough with an idea from Paul Dini...

A few years back, Dini planned on getting Barbara Gordon out of that wheelchair and back in a Batsuit. Alex Ross designed a new look for Barbara, with red and black colors instead of the old yellow of her earlier years as Batgirl, representing the changes she's undergone.

It ended up getting shot down, but folks at DC liked the design. Ross would make a few alterations, and it would be the look for the new Batwoman.

Batwoman is Kate Kane. Her aunt and namesake, Kathy Kane, was the original Batwoman. Kate's a bit different, though, aside from being a redhead (to fit a design originally planned for Babs). She also happens to be gay, the ex of Renee Montoya.

She was introduced by Greg Rucka during 52, where she was being targeted as the "Daughter of Cain" by a cult centered around the Crime Bible that had taken over Intergang. Following Batman RIP and Final Crisis, which saw Bruce Wayne removed from the Batbooks for a while, Kate got the lead feature in Detective Comics until it was time for Bruce to return, written by Rucka and drawn by J. H. Williams III. From the opening scene of Detective Comics #854, we knew we were in for something special...

Her father, and the main guy her assists her, is an Army hero, as was her late mother. This has a lot to do with her motivations, as we'll learn.

We finally encounter the leader of the Crime Bible cult, who calls herself Alice.

Well, naturally, I'm going to love a well written character who quotes, and models herself on, the main character of my all time favorite books. Lewis Carroll's Alice has become our primary modern Myth, and for good reason. Those books are so beautifully written that both Franz Ferdinand and Omnia have created songs just taking pieces from the books and setting them to music.

One recent development has been to give the various members of the Batman Family their own Rogues. Batgirl is about to get her own, and Red Robin has some. Alice is Kate's Joker.

Alice doesn't approve of killing either Kate or her father. That's because, as we learn, she's Kate's long lost and believed dead twin sister, Beth.

When that was revealed, some decided Rucka must have thrown that in at the last minute. However, looking over the entire arc, we see this isn't the case. It was strongly hinted from the moment Alice appeared, but done in a way we rarely see since the '90s made comic book art mainly about pin-ups, through the artwork.

Kate and Alice had the same, exact, features from the beginning. We just didn't notice due to the way they dressed and their different hair colors, even though both had unusually pale skin. Granted, many artists just tend to draw their women alike, but not Williams. His Kate has very distinct facial features. Oh, and she's a snappy dresser.

Her cousin Bette is the original Bat-Girl, former sidekick of the original Batwoman, and soon to be, as Flamebird, sidekick of the current one. She's also at the same college Stephanie Brown, the new Batgirl, is. Those two have too meet.

Bruce Wayne's mother was a Kane, though we don't know how closely related he is to Kate.

After this arc came the origin story. Note the colors the sisters wore, even then.

A terrorist attack kills her mother and (so she and her father believe) her sister. When she grows up, she dedicates her life to serving and protecting, like her parents, with a military career, and goes to West Point. However...

"What are you going to do now?"

She doesn't know. Then, one night, after an argument with her girlfriend, everything changes.

Batman is about striking fear into the Underworld, of course. But, he's more than that. He inspires others to take up his mission, to do as he has done, to dedicate themselves to a higher cause.

Her father relents, but insists that if she's going to do this, she needs to be better than she is. While she spends two years overseas training, he makes preparations of his own.

She quickly got rid of the heels.

Williams will be drawing the upcoming Batwoman book, which I'm looking forward to. Strangely enough, my other favorite recent book has been Batgirl.

The Hatter did have the Tweedles in a Wonderland gang, once. The Tweedles decided to betray him, which turned out to be a big mistake on their part. That story introduced the Carpenter, who's currently working for the Gotham City Sirens.

Alice may not appear at all. Rucka created Alice and Williams has implied that the character will be left for when Rucka wants to write her again. Also Williams is not just drawing Batwoman moving forward he'll be plotting it as well. Amy Reeder of Madame Xanadu and, lately, Supergirl covers will be alternating on artwork.

Didn't Rucka leave DC over some heated debacle? If Rucka is more than willing to abandon Batwoman for good, why would he want to come back and do anything with Alice?

It's kind of a bummer on how these character things work. You have this writer who creates these characters to be a staple to the main hero, but when the writer leaves, you can't use any of those characters. Talk about anti-climatic since we know Alice is still alive to the point they literally showed her on the last page.

When you say that Bette was the original Batgirl and that Kathy was the original Batwoman, you mean that they were the first in the older comics, right? Just clarifying things because I'm slightly confused.

IGN did an interview with J.H. Williams in regards to Batwoman and had this to say.

"The things that Kate Kane has to face and the threats she has to deal with don’t have anything to do with the return of Bruce Wayne and Batman, Inc. because we want to make sure we develop her own rogues gallery and so forth."

Thank god. Not even Oracle, the most kicka** female character of DC can escape the "Return of Bruce Wayne" issues who's entire purpose is focusing on the return of their lord and savior.

i believe that some of the Bette/Kathy batgirl/woman stories are in continuity. Kathy was killed by bronze tiger and it was implied that she had been batwoman for some time and had a relationship with bruce (sexual or not, they were close)

No, Morrison has (somehow) put all of that back in continuity - though I'm not sure he told anyone else at DC about that. Even the wacky Silver Age stories are part of Morrison's canon - even if he has to fanwank that they were part of a sensory deprivation experiment Batman participated in for the Army.

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